Anavex Life Sciences said Thursday that its experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease slowed the rate of cognitive decline in a clinical trial — but only by changing the study’s primary efficacy goals, omitting patients from the analysis, randomly altering data, making basic math errors, whistling past safety concerns, and using nonsensical statistical tests.
Put all those issues aside, and Anavex’s drug performed wonderfully. In fantasy land.
Back in reality, the company’s presentation at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference was a textbook demonstration of the deep bag of tricks that can be deployed to spin results from a failed clinical trial. Sadly, it sullied an otherwise spectacular CTAD meeting, highlighted by Eisai’s detailed, robust, and honest presentation of the lecanemab study data.
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